


Alfred Pennyworth Doesn't Like Pink Floyd

by Out_Of_Custody



Series: Ringed with the Azure [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Teen Titans - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wings, Dimension Travel, Friendship, Gen, Headcanon, Male-Female Friendship, Time Travel, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:15:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25881937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Out_Of_Custody/pseuds/Out_Of_Custody
Summary: -- and especially "When The Tigers Broke Free" (but that's really not of any consequence in this...blurb)--A side-step from my Wings-Story for those who've asked about Raven and AlfredCAUTION! This is not a fully finalized story! It's a headcanon! Just... detailed.
Relationships: Raven & Alfred Pennyworth
Series: Ringed with the Azure [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1878157
Kudos: 15





	Alfred Pennyworth Doesn't Like Pink Floyd

Well then, dearest readers, buckle up a bit.

So there is this piece of canon that I can’t find the source of anymore, stating that Alfred has served in the Gulf Wars or as a special forces veteran or-or-or. General consensus: Alfred was often already trained in combat as well as field triage (some exceptions apply obv).

But I wanted to go with something more old-timey – so I went with the Gulf Wars. Because I liked the idea. However, you know, chronologically it‘s a tight fit but there was this piece about [_burning down the forest_](https://www.irrawaddy.com/opinion/guest-column/batmans-butler-alfred-colonialism-burning-forest-work.html) in the movie The Dark Knight and that apparently alludes to Burma in the 1930s which… at the time the movie had come out 78 years had already past.

Given that, to enlist, you probably had to be roughly say 17 (I want to say 18 but I don‘t _know_ ; what I _do_ know is that people got conscripted at a younger age during war times so… I chose the number sitting between 16 and 18) which means, Alfred, in the 2008 movie, would have had to be 95 at my estimate. He had a child during the French Resistance of World War II. Like… roughly nine years after Burma.

And you know what? If DC can play with his age, then so can I.

\---

So.

Gulf Wars.

Or more precisely: Anglo-Iraqi War.

1941\. Well within the time-frame of the WWII and well within the canonical time-frame of Alfred Pennyworth.

I can‘t really go into detail about the war because I‘m not necessarily a history wiz and I‘m also not the biggest fan of describing war scenes most of the time. But…

Raven Roth has had to learn, hasn‘t she? The whole portal-jumping thing is all nice and dandy but it‘s not as if control comes overnight. Not even to those who‘ve been meditating all their life or who have been studying the topic _theoretically_ for as long as they could before the resources simply went extinct.

Riddle me this: You‘re young, you have the power to jump worlds and an angry dad nipping at your heels with the desire to enslave you to take over the world. What are you going to do?

That‘s right.

Jump worlds.

Only… the first few tries are not all that successful. Because you‘re ten and you‘re holding what amounts to a pneumatic hammer. Powerful. But no direction.

And Raven Roth – fleeing from Azarath, ends up in the Gulf Wars.

In the mobile kitchen of the British Army, where one Alfred Pennyworth is peeling his 756th potato out of 1000 for punching a superior officer (guy had it coming, going after a lady who said no but that‘s another thing and even his Marshall can‘t allow a man to disregard the chain of command like that) and breaking the arse’s wing. Not his fault, the second part, because who in the Army doesn’t know how to land on their backs without avoiding injury to their aviators? But whatever.

At first, Alfred Pennyworth does _not_ have the time for this. Bugger it. They‘re in the middle of _war_ and this _child_ drops out of nowhere, into war-territory, no lick of English, odd clothing and even odder behaviors. And those _wings_.

He thinks she‘s a spy.

Only, even when incarcerated, the young-one won‘t speak. Their translators don‘t know what they say. The other inmates shun them – mark the borders of their cells with runes that will keep them save and the little-one away. Sigils, Alfred learns, to keep away bad spirits. One night they try to clip her wings – the stolen shears are found dented and deformed on the ground the next morning.

So of course he gets curious. And of course he gets closer to the little one. And because he wants to understand them, he does the first thing that comes to mind – he tries to teach them his language. Now… he‘s roughly 28-ish. Male and has never had the duty to take care of someone younger. Much less _teach them_. At the time, I think, this was still largely a woman‘s profession. Y‘know, aside from where there could actually be made money or fame – bc that was firmly male. But teaching a youngling words? First words? That‘s female territory. So: Alfie has _no idea_ how to go about it.

And thus does what you do for a youngling: he reads to her.

Poetry.

Tennyson (1).

Because that‘s what he has on him at the moment… That’s proper for child consumption anyway (y’ain’t going to tell me Alfred Pennyworth, given the way he’s portrayed in _Pennyworth_ has _not_ had his hands on Tijuana Bibles).

They listen, avidly. Mouth mimicking his, repeating words they hear often. Wings flicking up and about to mimic the body-language of those they see. It’s heavy-handed and plump but in a way it is also endearing.

There’s a war on though and Alfred really doesn‘t have much time to spend with them.

Which is why it surprises him when he feels as if punched into the gut when their camp is attacked and the prison burns down. Nobody goes to save the inmates. Why would they?

Raven Roth doesn‘t return for some time. She has tasted a new language and she has met a _person_ of a new planet but the front-lines he serves are too close to the stench of her brothers and her father and she‘s afraid she‘ll be discovered.

So she runs.

But she also learns.

And at some point, she looks for the young man again.

It‘s 1942 and Japan advances on the Indies where the Allies are stationed. She finds Alfred Pennyworth coalescing in a field hospital from covering the retreat of a troop. She still doesn‘t know English very well, but enough to understand that none of that which is written on the papers sounds good. She doesn‘t know _why_ she does it – she‘ll be discovered if she‘s not careful –but… this one hasn‘t actually done her any harm. Not really. He didn‘t understand her and teleportation is not a thing that this new world is familiar with, but he didn‘t harm her. And she doesn‘t want to see him die.

So she helps him along.

Alfred Pennyworth makes a miraculous recovery from a wound he should not have risen again. He doesn‘t know what to tell the doctors and nurses except that he‘s dreamt of a young child (again). The one with the black hair and the snow-white skin. Tar-black wings that spread over two cots. The doctors worry for his mental health but they do not have a choice except to send him along on his journey now that he is on his way to betterment. War does not have a choice in its warriors. And so Alfred Pennyworth goes back. Raven Roth jumps away.

We lose a bit of time here, because Raven needs to develop her own sense of self – and/or regain it – and jump through enough realities to get her head wrapped around itself with all the up-down-jump-around. She has a few battles of her own that make her come into her power. Shakes off her brothers from several realities as they attempt to follow her to new worlds.

Incidentally, Raven Roth is seventeen when she lands in 1943 again. She’s not certain what world she is on, but there seem to be several… let’s say _fixed points_. Like World War II. (Could be because maybe there’s actually been magic involved that stretched over several if not all universes; maybe a bit of Chaos Magic? Ergh, don’t know. Anyway--) So Raven lands in July 1943, Italy – at the eve of Operation Husky. The Allied Invasion of Sicily that would lead to the victory over Italy or, at least, the destabilization of Moussolini as leader.

They meet, maybe, by coincidence.

She lands gracelessly in the galley of a forgotten HMS where Alfred Pennyworth is peeling his 683rd potato out of 1000 for blatantly disobeying orders. Even though it’d been during down-time – technically. The men don’t _mind_ is the thing and if he hadn’t needed to create a diversion that’d get him on the plan instead of _someone else_ , higher ups wouldn’t’a noticed. _But…_

And, at first, Alfred Pennyworth does _not_ have the strength for this. He’s tired. He’s probably broken more bones than he has. He’s lost comrades. Friends. He’s forgotten what he’s fighting for. Three years of war shouldn’t be doing this to him. He’s gone longer before. He should be able to do this. He should be able to--

And Alfred Pennyworth swears until this day that he can remember hearing his thoughts _stop_. Because he would remember those wings _anywhere_.

“Well you look all grown up for all that you’re supposed to be dead.”

He meets Raven Roth. Young woman of seventeen and uncertain origin with wings he’s never seen before in his _life_. Scaly and leathery and certainly dark enough to swallow up light.

“Y’look like _death_.”

It slips out unbidden but no less true and Raven, next to him, slides him an amused glance, lips spreading into a dry grin as she ruffles her wings.

“It has been said that she’s an indomitable Mistress.”

And there’s a hint of _something_ in the young voice. Something he hasn’t heard in someone _natural_ before. Something that reminds him of this laughable slip of news of a man faster than lighting he’s read in some paper _once_. Or the one about the weird futuristic ideas of the Americans about a Superhuman. Sounds… less weird when he’s sitting right next to someone who’s dropped out of thin air _twice_ in front of him.

He doesn’t report her this time.

Though he should. She could still, after all, be a spy. (He’s read the pamphlets. And he’s made enough experiences with what many consider to be _the weaker sex_ to know that a woman can be just as devious as a man can be strong. Ain’t no use to you if you can hit hard when she’s already tied you up good.)

But he doesn’t ask. He peels his potatoes. And she helps. Manually. Carefully. They pass the time talking about nothing much at all. Mostly she asks – when they are, where they are. Nothing detailed. No names. No positions. Nothing. Doesn’t even ask to be shown the outside. And when the time comes, he watches his men’s eyes go right through her. As if she wasn’t there. As if he was walking down the corridor alone – instead of with a shadow at his back.

Raven knows that she catches attention with the way she is dressed. But she has gotten the hang of cloaking herself from unaware eyes – those that rush from one place to another, those who are not _in the present_ , those that maybe even close their eyes to what shouldn’t be there. After a visit to the Narrenturm in Vienna in the 1790s or something she has woven a spell into her cloak to hide her from those with fragile psyches just as well.

When the Invasion comes, he tells her, like a good man, to stay safe. To stay away.

You never know and all that.

He almost bites his lower lip off when she appears in the middle of the fields. Shelters a comrade under wings that _stretch_ and don’t falter even under shrapnel before they lift her up and away into the brume overhead – into the confusion of the air, where the wind is too heavy for any one man to follow long enough. For the first time in his life he understands why men would hit women and pardon their behaviour with worry.

Naturally Alfred Pennyworth has raised himself to be better than that.

He doesn’t lift a hand to her (or any woman who hasn’t deserved it in the sense of proving herself a worthy opponent).

That doesn’t stop him from giving her a stern-looked not-talking-to when they find each other again that first night after the landing. He is tight-lipped and obviously angry at it when he hands her a bowl of stew that they’ve managed to scrap together over a camp that only he keeps watch over this late in the night.

Her fingers are scrapped and her wings merge with the darkness around them and he very pointedly says not a single word to her.

She finds him in the quiet moments. With food. With water. With medical supplies. Most of them wear the signet of the Italian or even German Forces and he cannot honestly mind her filching supplies from the enemy to help along the cause that he and his comrades have been consigned to.

It becomes obvious, later, when she finds him in the daylight that she has not been hiding from the women and children they find. Neither of them are _happy_ to see her. But none paint sigils to ward off evil.

They _do_ cross themselves though. Give her a few tissues – just enough to hide her wings from the rest of the men – and they allow her to take what she reaches for. Not, he is pleased to see, that she ever reaches for the things that a family cannot go without. Little as that is either way during war. He’s seen his comrades behave worse than Raven Roth does.

It’s during this time that they establish something of a code-phrase.

It’s a necessity, he insists.

Security for both of them.

He cannot promise her, after all, that he won’t always be unencumbered and knowing that there is _more_ than just humanity out there is not necessarily a comfort. Raven does not have the heart to tell him that she can read minds – that she would _know_ if he weren’t himself. It may be a small omission but it seems like the world of comfort to the young Falcon she’s found thrice now.

This is also the first time that they actually have _time_ to get to know each other – well. Time and the Tools of language at their behest.

He teaches her the cadence of poetry and the joys and grievances of Tennyson. They discuss – at length – how a person is supposed to behave despite their gender or upbringing. What a man is not supposed to do to a woman and, in turn, what a lady and dame should not do. There are a lot of nights they plough through this matter until something _gives_ in Raven and she understands something that Alfred cannot parse.

(Raven realizes that for all that this is _now_ for her, she has travelled into 1943. Men will have different expectations of women no matter _how_ emancipated a world-view they have. It’s a refresher, she supposes, in keeping in line with local… customs wherever she happens to travel.)

She knows, roughly, what will happen and she is anxious to part from the war-torn Falcon when she might not see him again. (She could, of course, search the Future for him but that is cheating and neither is it ever a certain thing. Always in motion the future is, she’s learned from George Lucas.)

Neither, however, can she stay for long. Sooner or later somebody _will_ notice. And thus, when Sicily is won, Raven offers him one night out. As friends. As nothing more than that which they have been for the time they have known each other.

“So you’ll be my younger sister then.”

“I already have three brothers. I am not certain I could stomach a fourth.”

“Ah. Three times is already the charm is it?”

“Quite so, I’m afraid.”

“Well then. Friend it is. May I?”

“Quite the opposite in fact. _May I_?”

Raven takes him along on a trip through a portal. Jumps him into London. “Just for tonight. You need to understand.”

“Hmm. Couldn’t imagine my SO’d take too kindly to me missing more of our glorious battles.”

“Your comrades would miss you.”

“Ah… What’s for the movies?”

Alfred learns that his home is still standing. Somehow. Learns that the war has London tightly in its grips. Learns that war has even made it onto the screens in a terrible mockery of what it really is. Learns that Pubs and Bars are fuller than they might have any right to be given the economic situation. Learns that people have changed.

And he knows, when she’s brought him back, that this is all that there is going to be.

“That was pro’lly the nicest goodbye a friend’s ever given me.”

I don’t know if there’s tears. I’d like for Alfred to shed some. Maybe. He’s allowed a little humanity and he _is_ , after all, the most emotionally mature in the House of the Bat. Raven explains that she can’t stay. Explains that it’d probably also be better for her to not try and search him again.

Alfred’s used to goodbyes. And he’s not lying. It’s the best goodbye a friend has ever given him. He pulls Raven close. He leaves her a letter – because he’s sneaky and he’s a good friend. Raven reads it when she has returned to ‘her’ time and ‘her’ space. Crying. Unaware that the time-line is quite right for them to meet again.

And maybe in honour of Alfred, she decides to join the Teen-Titans.

**Author's Note:**

> (1)  
> “What does little birdie say?”  
> Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)
> 
> From “Sea Dreams”
> 
> WHAT does little birdie say  
> In her nest at peep of day?  
> Let me fly, says little birdie,  
> Mother, let me fly away.  
> Birdie, rest a little longer,  
> Till the little wings are stronger.  
> So she rests a little longer,  
> Then she flies away. 
> 
> What does little baby say,  
> In her bed at peep of day?  
> Baby says, like little birdie,  
> Let me rise and fly away.  
> Baby sleep, a little longer,  
> Till the little limbs are stronger,  
> If she sleeps a little longer,  
> Baby too shall fly away.


End file.
